Postgame: End of an Era

Tonight marks the end of an era. A long, overdue goodbye to a harmful piece of the Leafs organization that despite having a large number of fans supporting him, never really had the success to match it.

(Tyler Bozak? Colton Orr? Dave Nonis? Peter Horacheck? Who knows, really. But this was likely the last hurrah for one or more of the gentlemen of the Leafs’ brass.)

Oh, and the Leafs played a somewhat entertaining 4-3 hockey game against their rival Montreal Canadiens.

The Rundown

There will be a number of articles coming up on TLN analyzing the Leafs season and offseason as a whole, so I’ll keep this article short, sweet, and on what it’s meant to be: analysis of the hockey game that just occurred.

Phil Kessel rounded out at a solid 25 goals on the year. Say what you want about his season, but that’s not an easy task in the NHL.

Tyler Bozak managed his 23rd of the year as well, while Plekanec, Desharnais, and Jacob De La Rose scored for Montreal.

Alex Galchenyuk scored the shootout winner.

Blue Warrior

Glenn Healy.

Just kidding, as already mentioned, Casey Bailey scored his first career NHL goal. Too early to tell how he’ll fit in the Leafs’ future, but that’s always a nice story.

Despite the miscues, drama, jokes, losses, losses, and more losses, there’s one really sad but important truth from this conclusion game:

No Toronto Maple Leafs Hockey until October. 🙁

5 Comments |

Great article Adam. I don’t think any of the people you mentioned should be let go. Peter Horacheck implemented a wonderful new system for the leaf players of concentrating more on their analytic side of the game. This truly is the future of the game as shown by young Mr. Dubas.

As you point out Phil got his usual 25 goals and just had a rough 4 months of the season where he had no lady luck and was picked on every day by the media.

Tyler Bozak had a great year of 23 goals and is a solid two way player as is indicated by his stats this year.

Sure Dave Nonis has made a couple of mistakes but we all have. Look at the great deal he pulled off to Columbus to get rid of David Clarkson. Not too many General Managers could have pulled off that deal.

Most of us have a good luck charm. In the case of the leafs it is the hard working, never give up, Mr. Truculence one Colton Orr who was the first proud signing of Brian Burke and his assistant Dave Nonis.

I think this noble warrior should get a new two year contract at a slight raise over his million. You never, never, never know when the leafs will need some truculence next season and Colton would be sooo handy close by ready to ably step in and give the leafs that extra giddy up and go that they need.

I would like to thank all the wonderful writers in here for allowing me to pontficate on the leafs about the great game of hockey.

I know that a lot of other hockey blogs in other cities of course continue to discuss, debate and pontificate on their home town team which as usual is in the playoffs, in Detroit’s case 24 straight years. So it is truly commendable that you will allow leaf fans who unfortunately have had only one year in the past decade to talk about their team in the playoffs to choose other teams to cheer for and thus be able to post their outstanding material in here.

You do realize a lot of your comments and little jabs at the analytic community come from things no one has said and you are making up.

No one defends Kessel, you act like that’s all we’ve done. No one defends Bozak, you act like that’s all we’ve done.

You can’t ACTUALLY say Carlyle’s system was working so you insult fans for hoping Horachek’s would. It didn’t, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Unless you think things like possessing the puck and defense are just long con’s…

Nobody defends Nonis, though some give credit where it is due… Not me though. Hell with him.

Unloading Clarkson was CBJ’s doing, getting value for rental players and grabbing some high ceiling college/international players was probably Shanny, Hunter and Dubas…

And everyone has been ripping the Colton Orr deal so idk where you’re going with that. In fact, it’s the people like YOU, the old boys club where numbers and facts don’t matter as much as the eye test, THEY are the ones who signed him and kept playing him.

T.G. It has been a pleasure to discuss the leafs with you during the season. I wish you a great summer. I have noticed though that not just with me there is this slight tendency to tad to get a teensy weensy angry in here.

There are wonderful anger management courses out there. I wish you the best in succeeding in this course of action.

No anger, gramps. Mostly confusion. A little bit of awestruck, dumbfounded amazement. Fair amount of frustration. But little to no anger.

Like… I’m confused how you rationalize making up things and people (like all those people who apparently defend Kessel, Bozy, and Nonis) and then insulting real people (like myself, Jeffler, this author, Dangle, etc) as if we’d done any of those things no one has done…

And awestruck, dumbfounded amazement that you continue to fight a battle that has not only been lost but was never a real fight. I mean, even the old boys club in baseball gave into the value of analytics as a tool faster than you seem willing to.

no one is sad that the leafs aren’t playing until october. i’m more anxious about the draft! the raptors are going to the playoffs again, the jays look good this year and the marlies are in the playoffs at the moment. no one will miss this gong show team.